


ghost house hunting

by eidetic



Category: Original Work
Genre: Banter, Haunting, Humor, M/M, Modern Era, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-01-12 22:19:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18455738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidetic/pseuds/eidetic
Summary: Sian was the ghost hunter, not Cayce. Unfortunately, Sian is dead and the skeptical Cayce has promised his little sister he’d finish all of her outstanding work-for-hire.





	ghost house hunting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Irusu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irusu/gifts).



“Ohhhh! Nice house. Bet it’s actually haunted.”

“Yeah, but _that_ isn’t real. I’m sorry, George, but it’s just _not_.”

“Aww, come on.”

“Nope, it’s just _not_. I mean, see for yourself! This smudge has to be Photoshopped, okay?” Cayce tapped his finger against the relevant image pulled up on the screen of his sister’s Panasonic Toughbook laptop to emphasize his point.

“And how do you _know_ that, exactly? Sian did agree to take the case, and you said she seemed pretty convinced before…well…you know…”

Cayce sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration, even though all that would do was turn his natural curls into an electric-shock head of frizz. He _did_ know. His little sister Sian was his only family, and she was a professional ghost hunter for hire (of all things!). Or rather she _had_ been until she’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at 37 years old.

There had been nothing anyone could do about the cancer, save for Sian to get her affairs in order. Cayce had dropped everything in his not-so-stupendously-awesome personal life to be her support, and he’d been sitting there at Sian’s hospital deathbed when she’d made him promise that he’d clear her remaining caseload for her. He didn’t believe in ghosts, which she knew full well, but he hadn’t had the heart to deny her, which she also knew full well.

So, here he was, a card-carrying skeptic, organizing a midnight stakeout at the Mason estate. All nuisance ghosts, poltergeists, hauntings, and other assorted spirits from beyond the grave identified and removed from the premises—or your money back! Satisfaction 100% guaranteed.

Sian had taken already Mrs. Mason’s money; now Cayce was the guarantee.

 

 

Cayce had nothing against True Believers. His own one and only little sister had been one, after all. It was just that he wasn’t one himself. He never had been, and as far as he was concerned, he never would be.

To each their own—yep, that was his motto. Different people coped with life’s inevitable slings and arrows in different ways: Some got a new hobby. Others tried out a new haircut or a new diet or a new job. Still others found religion. Then there were the occasional few, the very occasional few, who insisted that their houses were haunted by ghosts.

And finally, there was at least one man on the planet by the name Cayce Johnston who dealt with the double-whammy of a bad breakup with his live-in boyfriend of over a decade and a subsequent death in the family by inventing an imaginary friend named George.

George, whose hobby was home design and whose PhD was in snark.

So. Right. Yeah. Cayce didn’t judge, like he said. He was the last person who’d ever, _ever_ judge.

 

 

“Nice house, isn’t it?” George remarked.

Cayce grunted distractedly. The Mason estate was “nice” if sprawling, neo-gothic ancestral piles were your speed. Otherwise, you’d probably be reaching for words like “crumbling,” “dusty,” and “spooky” for the brick mansion in question. George had a spontaneous orgasm purely from _contemplating_ the restoration potential.

“Why do rich people need so much _stuff_?” Cayce grumbled. This attic had to be at least ten times as big as Cayce’s entire apartment in the central city, and it was jam-packed full of ten apartments’ worth of excess possessions. This was making it very difficult to navigate.

“Who knows when you’ll be in sudden need an extra armoire or twenty, am I right?” George joked somewhere behind Cayce’s right ear.

“Excellent source of firewood, I suppose,” Cayce muttered. The Masons said the ghostly activities seemed to be coming mostly from the attic: weird creaks and bumps, voices, the occasional blurry apparition. But all the stuff in the attic was making it difficult for his sister’s patented ectoplasmometer-app to get a clear read-out.

“For shame! This is a bargain hunter’s heaven! Why, I—”

“Too bad I’m a ghost hunter, not a bargain hunter.”

“Aww, c’mon, Cayce! Why are you being like this? See that piece over there? _That’s_ an authentic Colonial-Era—”

“Shaddup. Can’t you see I’m trying to concentrate?” Why did Cayce’s imaginary friends have to be fans of Antiques Roadshow? Also, why couldn’t this be the old days with _real_ ectoplasmometers that he could hit with the palm of his hand in frustration, instead of ectoplasmometer-apps that took up so much memory on his mobile that he’d had to migrate his favorite ABBA live concert videos off onto a MicroSD card? Also—Cayce squinted—why hadn’t he opted for the smartphone with the 6-inch display?

No unexplained noises or creepy visual distortions yet. Just a jumping ectoplasmometer-app needle, whose strongest readings seemed to be coming from the direction of a claw-foot end table topped with a fancy decorative urn…

Wait, a fancy decorative urn…?

“Bingo,” George said. And kissed him. On the lips. With tongue.

The urn had an inscribed brass plaque on its base: “George John Meyer Mason, 1782 — 1819.”

 

 

“I met this guy at work I think you’d really like, and I’ve already told him about you, and I want to introduce—” Sian had informed him a week before the end, voice thin and hoarse with strain.

“Don’t worry about me,” Cayce had interrupted. He’d been touched that she was so concerned about him and his love life, but he hadn’t exactly been his own top priority, not while his sister had been dying. “Focus on getting better, okay?”

They’d never discussed Sian’s “guy” again, but really, Cayce should have _known_.

 

 

George John Meyer Mason was the great, great, great, great-oh whatever bachelor uncle of the current generation of Masons. He’d died, unwed and without issue, at the age of 37, of an inexplicable, fatal illness that was probably, in light of the knowledge of twenty-first century modern medical profession, pancreatic cancer.

His primary lasting legacy, it seemed, was the design and construction of the Mason estate. His taste for architectural and interior design—not to mention the contemporary spoken idiom—ranked second to none.

He was also somewhat vain.

“No, no, not this one! Use _that_ one for the website. I look soooo _hot_ in that one,” George insisted.

Cayce had gotten several remarkably focused photos of the Mason attic apparition. They depicted a handsome man in well-tailored, vintage clothing standing next to the funerary urn containing what little remained of his, well, _remains_. He had laughing eyes and a sweet smile. He didn’t look like a scary ghost in the least.

As such, there had been some debate between Mrs. Mason and her adult children about whether or not to authorize an exorcism. In the end, though, the son who yelled loudest about how all the noise coming from the attic—“like somebody’s trying to redecorate up there,” he said, which may actually have been remarkably, er, on the mark—was making it difficult for him to sleep through the night had won the argument, and Cayce had removed their “nuisance ghost” from the premises.

Mrs. Mason had given him an excellent tip too. Five-figures’ worth of excellent. Maybe ghost-hunting wasn’t such a bad business after all.

“You could make a down payment on a new apartment,” George suggested. “One big enough for a couple.” It was a Friday evening, and they were sitting together on the sofa and watching television while Cayce worked on updating his business presence online. George kept nuzzling Cayce’s cheek. The touch felt warm—and not particularly imaginary.

“My current apartment is already big enough for a couple.” He Who Shalt Not Be Named had lived with Cayce, so it wasn’t like Cayce didn’t have proof to the contrary.

“Puh-leeze. Barely. And I got _plans_ , baby.” That was true. George had already chosen a color scheme for their hypothetical future bedroom, and he’d been using Sian’s Toughbook to browse antique headboards on eBay.

“Ghosts are scary.”

“Don’t be silly. Change the channel to HGTV, will you?”


End file.
